Apple Inches Closer to Launching the iPhone 6 in China

Friday should be one of the most successful days in Apple history as the company opens up stores around the world to sell the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but ongoing regulatory issues in China threaten to take a big bite our of those early sales. Last we heard, the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in China were delayed until early 2015, but a new report out of China (via Reuters)claims Apple is now halfway through the approval process.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have reportedly been approved to use China’s frequencies, but Apple still has a major hurdle left before the new smartphones can launch. The company needs one more network license. There’s no word on when Cupertino will get the approval it needs from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, though today’s news suggest it might not take as long as expected.

It’s unclear exactly why the Chinese government is giving Apple such a hard time, though Beijing came down hard on the company over security issues earlier this year. Apple was actually forced to move its Chinese iCloud data onto local servers, but maybe that wasn’t enough to appease the government’s security concerns.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will launch the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and Hong Kong tomorrow, but it looks like the rest of China will have to wait a bit longer. That’s bad news for Apple, but it’s also a bummer for anyone in China’s who’s been looking forward to grabbing one of the company’s new super-sized iPhones for themselves.